Monday, 14 November 2016

/*
* Your warranty is now void.
*
* I am not responsible for bricked devices, dead SD cards,
* thermonuclear war, or you getting fired because the alarm app failed. Please
* do some research if you have any concerns about features included in this ROM
* before flashing it! YOU are choosing to make these modifications, and if
* you point the finger at me for messing up your device, I will laugh at you.

Each step of the guide REQUIRES you to have completed the step prior to that one for it to work. For example, you can't go installing TWRP on your device without unlocking the bootloader first.

Unlocking the Bootloader:The first thing any Mi5 owner NEEDS to do is to unlock their bootloader.Here is a great guide for unlocking the bootloader of the Mi5 (or any Xiaomi device for that matter) by TheUltrametricSpace. It's much better than anything I can make. So before you do anything go here and unlock the bootloader.

Installing TWRP:When I use the Official TWRP from here, my touchscreen doesn't work. I haven't a found a solution yet. If any of you know how to fix this then please post it down below. If it works out I'll put it up in this guide. For now, we'll use TWRP by Cofface for Mi5. So far this is the only TWRP that seems to work for me.

You're most likely coming from MIUI 8 and thus, running Marshmallow. I'm not sure but there is some sort of encryption that Google has put in so you cannot use TWRP to flash your .zips from Internal Storage. So before you go any further, backup your files/apps or anything you might need.

Go to the platform-tools folder and extract the .rar file that you downloaded earlier containing TWRP there.

Rename the .img file extarcted from the TWRP .rar to twrp.img

Run the CMD shortcut you pasted in the ADB folder from the guide above as an administrator.

Connect you Mi5 to your computer. Hold both the Power and Volume Down button to boot into the bootloader. You should see this image.

[At this point, you MUST have fastboot.exe and twrp.img inside the platform-tools folder.

Now go back to the CMD window you opened. Type in the follwoing:

Code:

adb devices

Press enter. You should see your device in the window after typing this.

Code:

fastboot flash recovery twrp.img

Press enter. On the command window you should see a few lines popup and at the end it will show time taken to complete operation. So far so good.

Code:

adb reboot recovery

Press enter. You should now see the TWRP flash screen.

If TWRP is in Chinese, worry not.

Tap on the second box to select language. Scroll down and select English.

Swipe to allow modifications.

You should be in TWRP now.

DO NOT BOOT OUT OF TWRP RIGHT NOW.

Installing Cyanogenmod 13:Of all the ROMs that I have used, I find that CM13 is far better. It's mostly personal preference. If you want to install any other ROM, the process is more or less exactly the same. Follow the instructions below: